‘The dining room or the table?’
‘The Dower House,’ she snapped, her colour high, all traces of wheedling quite vanished.
‘Then you must tell me in what ways it is lacking and we will remedy them. You will not wish to be coming up to London, of course, not at this stage of your mourning, but do not hesitate to let me know when you would like me to obtain a town house for you next year.’
‘Not come to London? However shall I dress?’
‘Decently, I trust,’ Alistair said with an edge to his voice. ‘Send for a modiste, send to town for fabrics. I will not be ungenerous with your allowance.’
‘My—’ Imogen stared at him.
‘But of course,’ he added, ‘if you are able to carry the cost of travel to London and accommodation while you are there—for I fear Iwerne House will be undergoing extensive works—I can only assume you require no allowance from me.’
‘You … I … I must obey you or be a pauper, is that it?’
The complete lack of expression on the faces of Barstow and the footmen gave Alistair the clue that scenes of this sort were not unknown in the household.
‘You have only to do what your natural good taste and the dictates of society tell you,’ he added soothingly, ‘and all will be well.’
‘In that house!’
‘Indeed.’
Imogen sulked for the rest of the meal, treating Alistair to an exhibition of frigid disdain that would have amused him if he were not so tired. As soon as the dessert, which she merely picked at, was removed, she got to her feet.
‘Goodnight, ma’am,’ Alistair said, rising. ‘I will see you at breakfast, perhaps?’
‘I doubt it, I rarely rise before noon.’ She swept out, quivering with affronted dignity.
Alistair stayed on his feet, poured himself a glass of port and carried it to the other door. ‘Barstow, send Gregory to me in my chamber, if you please. I will take breakfast at eight.’
The footman bustled about, turning down the bed, shaking out a long silk robe, trimming the candle wicks as Alistair shed coat and neckcloth. ‘Is there anything else, my lord? Goodnight then, my lord, your nightgown is on the bed.’
Alistair gave him a minute, then got up and turned the key in the lock, walked through to the dressing room and locked the outer door there, too. He sat for a while at the desk, savouring his port and making lists, one eye on the clock. As it struck midnight there was a light scratching on one panel, repeated when he made no move to open it. After a moment the handle turned. Silence, then he heard the handle in the dressing room rattle.
It was as well he had taken precautions. Perhaps, he thought, his smile thin, he should find himself a chaperon. Once he had thought he would die for that woman. What nonsense love was.
‘We must call at the Castle,’ Lady Wycombe said, two days after Dita’s return, when the family had finally stopped talking. ‘We should not be neglectful in welcoming Lord Iwerne formally to the neighbourhood again—and, of course, we must thank him once more for all he has done for us.’ She smiled fondly at Dita.
‘Must we, Mama?’ Evaline wrinkled her nose. ‘Lord Iwerne, by all means, but her ladyship …’
‘Is she so very unpleasant?’ Dita asked, curious. ‘I met her, of course, now and again. She is beautiful.’
‘And empty-headed and spiteful,’ her sister retorted.
‘Evaline! Oh dear. Yes, well, she is not a female I would wish my daughters to associate with, if I am to be honest,’ Lady Wycombe admitted. ‘As you are both grown up now and none of the men are here, I will not disguise the fact that I fear her morals are not all they should be either, even when the late marquis was alive.’
‘Really? Surely he was not a man to stand for that sort of thing?’
‘Sauce for the goose, my dear,’ her mother said with startling frankness. ‘Once it became clear she was barren, they appear to have agreed to find their pleasures where they chose. It was obvious the lack of children was not his fault, for, although Alistair’s mother died before she could have more babies, there are enough bastards of his in the area to crew a brig.’
‘Mama!’ Dita said on a gasp of shocked laughter.
‘While Alistair is in residence we must show every courtesy.’ Lady Wycombe smiled. ‘And, Evaline, lend Dita your new emerald-green afternoon gown and the villager hat with the velvet ribbons, I’ll not have Imogen Lyndon sneering at how my daughters dress. Oh, yes, and the pearls.’
Elegantly gowned, and with Evaline in a delightful rose-pink ensemble beside her, Dita regarded her mother fondly as the carriage rattled over the drawbridge to the outer gatehouse of the castle. Her frankness and lack of prudery had made Mama easy to confide in during the aftermath of her ruinous elopement when her father was still coldly angry with her. She had assured her mother that she had not slept with Stephen, and that had tempered her father’s ire somewhat, but even so, he had taken longer than her mother to come to terms with her foolishness.